It’s a little bit late, but Marc Weiszer of the Athens Banner-Herald reported on Bobo’s presser last week on how he plans on opening up the offense this year, and here’s what the OC had to say:

“It comes down to a lot of things,” Bobo said Wednesday Aug. 12. “Identifying playmakers that make plays. We call it competitive excellence. When the opportunity presents itself to make a play, make those plays.”

Bobo added other factors include the offensive line needing to protect, Stockton needing to “see things better,” and the offense “being more aggressive at times to push the ball down the field.

He said “a lot of what we did,” last season was to protect Stockton with calls made as a first-year starter and provide “easy outlets,” to the now departed Zachariah Branch.

A more mature Stockton, he said, will allow Georgia to “evolve as an offense,” and he doesn’t want Stockton to be “so risk-averse you’re afraid to push the ball down the field.

Bobo said he’s talked to the offense about taking more shots down field.

“You learn what you can and can’t do,” he said.

Georgia posted 58 plays of 20 or more yards last season in Stockton’s first season as starter, down from 69 in 2024 and 85 in 2023, per cfbstats.com. Pass plays of 20 or more yards ranked 56^th with 42, down from eighth with 59 in 2024 and sixth with 65 in 2023.

Smart told the SEC Network he wants more off schedule plays to turn into explosives. He said broken plays when Stockton took off and made a play led to explosive plays.

“There are chances for explosives on broken plays,” Bobo said. “Gunner had a lot of those last year on broken plays where he scrambled and made plays. Sometimes he didn’t get enough space between him and a defender and took some wicked shots. A lot of that is on Gunner.” (Emphasis added)

Okay, truly I understand that a new Quarterback playing in his first full season could use some easy plays to help him settle in to a rhythm, and I won’t say that Gunner was without his highlight reel moments last year. He had some great games, he had some average games. Given that Arian Smith was playing in New Jersey, it didn’t mean that the downfield threat had to disappear altogether, either.

As I posted last week, the most curious thing to me is the underutilization of our tight end room in the passing game…but that’s more of an optics element, isn’t it? Were there calls to push the ball deep or to a tight end where Gunner checked down to the easiest play? Or were they all designed plays to force an easy option for efficiency?

The mantra last year was “run the ball, stop the run”. Run oriented offense typically speaks to clock control and game control, so it would stand to reason that this would be more by design…and at what point in the season should the training wheels come off to trust him to make the big throws downfield? We saw the potential in the deep pass to Humphreys at Tennessee, so the talent is definitely there.

But when you add in the factors of dropped balls, low percentage chances on deep throws to maintain drives, and a sometimes sketchy offensive line that had moments of greatness and moments of pure terror, the combination of factors lends itself to a coach making the determination that the “Safe” strategy is the only strategy to follow.

It’s Year 2 for Gunner and I’m guessing it’ll be his last, maybe, but it’s now or never with a talented offensive line and every imaginable weapon around you. Happy feet scrambles for five yards may net positive gains, but when you have a unicorn tight end running free down the middle of the field or a receiver completely open down the sideline, at some point you’ll lost the trust of the fans, or worse, the trust of your skill position players.

Talk is cheap. We’ve been hearing about “havoc” and “explosives” for a while now and seem to have been generating less of both lately. Schumann is not without his own level of criticism on the defensive side, and for all the talk about elite this and elite that, seeing it translate into touchdowns and turnovers would do a hell of a lot more to instill fear in the opponent than a bunch of press room conversations, no?